


blueprints, bracelets, and a pair of handcuffs

by cherriedpeaches



Series: Arumika Week 2019 [4]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Arumika Week, Childhood Friends, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Pining, Red String of Fate, Reincarnation, Truth or Dare, lots of talk about soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 21:03:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20785073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherriedpeaches/pseuds/cherriedpeaches
Summary: To an outsider, the question had bubbled up almost out of nowhere.Really, it’d come from a lot of places, from the philosophy book that he had read a week ago, to the resurfaced memories of his grandfather's tales as a child, (to the fact that when Armin wondered what his own soulmate would be like, his mind always gravitated back to one person in particular) to genuine curiosity.Whichever one tipped the scale into Armin opening his mouth, it sure as Wall Maria's blessed gates wasn't nowhere.“Are soulmates real, do you think?”...Arumika Week, Day 4: Tied Up





	blueprints, bracelets, and a pair of handcuffs

It's said that soulmates always find their way back to each other.

The walled world was always going to be divided when it came to spiritual matters, especially when they were as widespread and ancient as soulmates. Within every belief, there are highly opinionated parties; people who will enthusiastically (or aggressively) rant about their side at the drop of a pin. There's always going to be a vocal minority.

Most people don't think much of it. It's not something that affects their everyday lives, it's something in the faraway future, something people will shrug their shoulders at and say  _ Well, if it happens, it happens. _

Soulmates are the kind of thing that you think about late at night, when the stars are out and the world is sleeping (no, not the world,  _ their  _ world. The little pen of grass and wall that most  _ somehow _ regarded as all there was).

In this small, dark pocket of time, an untouchable vacuum that existed outside of, (or perhaps hidden from) the rest of their structured, sensible lives, they'd rub their wrist and wonder.

According to myths, soulmates were tied together with some sort of cosmic string. A web of stardust and fate, that always draws people back together.

The string looped once around the wrist and tied at the base, where palm meets arm, in a simple overhand knot, and the rest trailed along the ground, across thresholds, fields, and if you were unlucky, Walls, and on the other end was the person's soulmate.

The string was invisible and intangible, so that made it very easy to follow.

Legends have variations. This legend, in particular, had existed for a long time, before humanity fled to the walls, before the titans, before the written word. The word  _ soulmate _ was passed on by tongue first and foremost, mother to child, teenager to teenager, village crazy to bitter skeptic.

Some say that one can only see their string in their dreams, when the mind ascends to a higher plane, a greater understanding. Then, you can see the direction that the string is tugging you in. Once you wake up, though your mind remembers nothing of the experience, your heart will just  _ know _ which way to go.

There are those that believe that the string doesn't loop around the wrist at all, but instead is tied tightly around the littlest finger.

Some argue that soulmates will always find their way back to each other, hearts coming back together the way birds return home from the winter. Others say that soulmates don't leave each other at all, that the string around their wrists subconsciously binding them together.

Some say that soulmates don't exist in any way, only humanity's endless loneliness in a universe too big for them to understand.

It's mostly believed that time after time, life after life, soulmates find each other. Be it king and queen, obsessive mortal enemies, or bee and flower, soulmates will always come back together in the end.

No matter which variation that they were raised to believe, which silent fantasy they entertain, everyone wonders about it at least once. Most remain silent and embarrassed about it, but look closely, you'd see them brush their thumb across the soft of their wrist, quiet and contemplative and perhaps even a little wistful.

* * *

Armin asked Mikasa, once, what she thought of soulmates.

It was late, really late, the time of night where there was nothing to do but sit under the moon and think.

They were in one of the corridors on-base, sitting in the little pool of warm lantern-light, Armin flicking through designs for improving 3DMG gear in a vague, sleep-deprived way, while Mikasa leaned against a wall, eyes closed, breath even, though Armin could tell that she was still awake.

They had taken to nights like this every so often, just sitting idle in a quiet hallway, soaking in each other's company.

The dorms felt too big and empty these days.

To an outsider, the question had bubbled up almost out of nowhere.

Really, it’d come from a lot of places, from the philosophy book that he had read a week ago, to the resurfaced memories of his grandfather's tales as a child, (to the fact that when Armin wondered what his own soulmate would be like, his mind always gravitated back to one person in particular) to genuine curiosity.

Whichever one tipped the scale into Armin opening his mouth, it sure as Wall Maria's blessed gates wasn't nowhere.

“Are soulmates real, do you think?”

The question wasn't blurted out, so much as it floated from Armin's lips, soft and absent-minded and not really meant to have been said out loud.

The words, quiet as they were, echoed a hum through the empty walls, hovering alone in the cool air for a moment, before Mikasa cracked an eye open.

“Hmm,” was all her input for a moment. She sat up slowly, and stretched, back cracking as Armin winced. She turned to him, eyes lax and hair sticking up at the back ( _ that _ did odd things to Armin's heart that he didn't want to think about) and said, to the comfortable quiet of the hallway, “Does it matter?”

Armin blinked, a little taken aback for a moment, before reorienting his thoughts. “No,” he set the blueprints onto the ground next to him. “I mean, I guess not really.”

“I have people,” Mikasa said, tugging at her sleeves. “I don't need anyone else.”

Armin understood. He had Mikasa, and Jean and Sasha and Connie, and once upon a time he had had Eren. The idea that one day he would meet someone who would be more important to him than his friends, someone he'd have no choice but to love, was... uncomfortable.

“You're right,” he straightened a little, from where he was cross-legged on the floor. “It's not like we're jigsaw pieces,”

Mikasa hummed her agreement, letting her eyes slip closed again, apparently finishing the conversation. Armin watched for a second and a half, dumb and soft and fond of his best friend.

He didn't need the universe to tell him who to love.

* * *

Armin is nine, and he meets the girl who will be moving in with Eren and his family.

She has dark, almond shaped eyes, black hair, and rarely speaks. Armin knows something very, very bad happened to her family. His grandfather speaks very lowly when he's talking about it to the Jaegers, and Eren has let a couple of things slip. (He's a clumsy kid, after all.)

But Armin doesn't pry. When he reads books where the main character's family dies tragically, it's always very hard for them to talk about. Armin doesn't like talking about his own parents to anyone but his grandfather and Eren.

So, Armin just perches himself next to her on the curb outside the Jaeger residence, extends a small hand, and introduces himself.

* * *

Armin is twelve, and he accidentally ties himself to Mikasa.

It's Christmas-time, and Armin is wearing a really, really ugly jumper that he suspects his grandfather only made him wear to embarrass him. It's dark green and bright red, with Christmas lights on the front that he can actually turn on. And he would be embarrassed, if he was wearing this jumper with anyone who wasn't Mikasa or Eren.

Mikasa is wearing a clunky bracelet that Sasha got her for Christmas. They're sitting next to each other on the couch, and when Armin leans forward to point at something on the television, his wrist brushes Mikasa's.

And it gets stuck.

Several threads had somehow managed to tangle with something on the bracelet, and now Armin and Mikasa are literally tied together by the wrists.

Eren snickers a little when Armin lifts his hand and accidentally lifts Mikasa's as well. They both stare down at the string for a moment, bemused.

There's a minute of careful tugging, not wanting to snap the bracelet or unravel the jumper, but to no avail. The only way out of this one is to get up and go all the way to the kitchen to get a pair of scissors.

Both Mikasa and Armin are far too warm and comfy to do that, and Eren obviously feels no sympathy for them. Armin sighs, and Mikasa looks exasperated, but they end up just sitting a little closer together on the couch, not feeling the need to go out of the way to untangle themselves.

* * *

Armin is sixteen, and he ends up handcuffed to Mikasa on a dare.

It's an overnight school camping trip, the group's unsupervised, and they're playing, you guessed it, truth or dare.

It's all the dumb shit that teenagers come up with when put on the spot. Ymir has to sit in Krista's lap for the rest of the game (she seems a little too happy about that, to no one's surprise), Jean tried to do a backflip (Armin is still wincing at the solid  _ thonk  _ from when he hit the ground unsuccessfully), and Bertholdt had to let everyone look through his phone (there was a borderline creepy number of pictures of Annie and Reiner on there).

The campfire is beginning to burn low when Connie (who had just been dared to take off his pants and wear them like a cape for the rest of the game; the dares really did get stupider the longer the night wore on) turns and says, “Hey Mikasa! Truth or dare?”

And, as she had done for every other turn in the game, Mikasa replies “Dare.”

“Handcuff yourself to one of the people beside you for the next six hours.”

On Mikasa's other side is Sasha, who had eaten the group's entire stash of chocolate-chip cookies in roughly seven minutes and seems to be vibrating lightly and steadily in her seat. She turns and grins at Mikasa.

Mikasa's expression doesn't change, but she does very pointedly avoid Sasha's stare. “Does anyone here have a pair of handcuffs?”

Annie produces a pair out of nowhere, and no one in the group seems brave enough to ask questions. She hands them to Mikasa silently.

“Annie, you have the keys, right?” Krista asks warily.

Annie nods. “I'll hold onto them until wake-up call,”

Mikasa stares at the cuffs in her hand, and turns to Armin, a question in her eyes.

He knows that, if for whatever reason, he really, really doesn't want to be handcuffed, he could just say so, or shake his head, or do anything else to communicate  _ no  _ and Mikasa would nod and cuff herself to Sasha.

But really, it's only being handcuffed to his best friend for a couple of hours, most of which would be spent asleep. Armin's had worse experiences with truth or dare.

(Far, far worse experiences.)

Also, Sasha looks like she's either about to throw up or fall into a food coma, more likely both, and Mikasa does not deserve to deal with that.

So, he holds out a bony wrist, and Mikasa slides the metal (metal! Where did Annie get these things?) cuff around it with a final  _ clink. _ And then cuffs herself.

They have to sit closer together so as not to be stretching their arms uncomfortably, and it's awfully reminiscent of when they were twelve and got tangled together by thread. Only this time, instead of jumper strings and bracelets, it's police-quality handcuffs. (Seriously, Armin is possibly even more scared of Annie than he was before.)

It's, by far, not the worst of dares, considering that Reiner now has to speak in Italian (which he doesn't even speak, he's been saying  _ spaghetti _ and  _ mamma mia _ as substitute for communication) for the next twelve hours. The teachers are going to be pissed, to say the least.

Mikasa's skin is cool from where the back of her hand is brushing Armin's. It's not unfamiliar, Armin, Mikasa and Eren used to hold hands all the time when they were kids, small and sticky and reaching for affection, and they still do sometimes. Still, the feeling of Mikasa's hand against his own makes his stomach and cheeks feel warm.

Several things happen before they wrap the game up; Jean is revealed to have once been a theatre kid, Mikasa accidentally(...?) hooks her pinkie around Armin's, Annie has to recite the Hail Mary backwards three times while holding looking into a handheld mirror, Armin resists the urge to drop his head onto Mikasa's shoulder, Jean is forced to get up and tap dance in front of everyone to  _ King of New York, _ Armin and Mikasa have somehow ended up pressed together, hip to hip, and whoops, would you look at that, Armin's head is on Mikasa's shoulder.

The game, fortunately or unfortunately, finishes up after that.

They do end on a high note, everyone who's awake clapping and whooping as Jean wraps up his (very talented, to be fair) tap dance. Jean's panting, red faced, and looking ready to pass out. 

Ymir is asleep, sprawled out in Krista's lap, and seems to be sleep-punching anyone who tries to move her. Connie and Sasha are completely out cold, and no one seems enthusiastic to try and move them. (Seriously, they may look small, but the wonder twins are  _ heavy. _ Armin guesses muscle mass, Mikasa says it comes from their thick skulls.)

Eren is passed out in a snoring heap, lying across his own seat and onto where Jean used to be sitting (“Hey!”) and Reiner is slumped onto Annie, who, despite supporting the weight of someone thrice her size, seems to be having no trouble.

Armin himself can feel his eyelids fluttering, face buried in Mikasa's shoulder and listening to the soft chatter of anyone still awake. Mikasa tilts her head towards Armin's.

Armin jumps about a foot in the air when a massive clanging noise splits the warm air.

“Alright, brats,” Levi says, holding a frying pan and a hammer (Armin doesn't even know why he brought them along for the trip; just for this?), “It's beddie-byes time. Get into your tents.”

Mikasa, plus a groggy Ymir, glare absolute daggers of ice at him, while Armin, Krista and Bertholdt struggle to not look guilty. Eren and Reiner appear at least half-conscious, an improvement.

“Don't make me bloody this hammer,” Levi snaps. “Go to bed!”

And so, slowly and sleepily, nine teenagers picked themselves up from the “rustic” logs surrounding the dead campfire, and dragged themselves back to their tents. (Sasha and Connie remain out cold, and no one bothers to even try to wake them. Sleeping outside for the night; that'll teach them to eat all the chocolate-chip cookies and the two bags of marshmallows. The good kind, too!)

There isn't an issue until Mikasa and Armin come up to the tent area. Every tiny tent is assigned to a pair, Mikasa and Sasha are sharing one, as Armin is with Bertholdt.

Armin looks between the tents, then down at the chain linking him and Mikasa together. “Uh…”

“We can share a tent,” Mikasa says, cool as a cucumber, as usual. “Sasha isn't coming back anytime soon.”

She's right. Sasha and Connie sleep like the dead, the chances are slim to none that they'll wake up during the night. Chances are slim to none that they'll wake up the next  _ morning. _

“Sure,” Armin shrugs, and it sounds calmer than he is. He feels creepy, sleeping next to someone that he has (a crush?) these funny feelings for. It feels like taking advantage.

Then again, it's not like they have much choice.

Armin and Mikasa end up having to lie a lot closer together than originally anticipated.

Meaning, they have to share a sleeping bag.

The thing is, it's cold outside. Nose-falling-off cold. They can't just leave their arms dangling out of the bags to be eaten by wild bears or something. And to share a sleeping bag means that they share body heat anyway. It's killing two birds with one stone.

The problem: Mikasa's sleeping bag is bigger than Armin's, yeah. That's why they're sharing it. But it's not that big. They're squished together like clothes in a suitcase you've waited too long to pack. Armin is practically on top of Mikasa, and he can feel every move she makes, and her breaths brush against his forehead.

Still though, it's not as bad as it could be. Mikasa's presence is always calming. Armin doesn't want to think about what it would be like to be handcuffed to, say, Connie or Sasha.

It's not bad at all.

And there are those feelings again. Soft and warm, buzzing around his stomach and lungs. Armin burrows further into the sleeping bag and, unintentionally (mostly), into Mikasa. She wraps her free arm around him.

Armin knows that this is dangerous territory; a grey area where platonic and romantic actions overlap, and he'll spend the next few weeks lying in bed, remembering and then wanting and then feeling guilty.

His nose is at her collarbone, her arm is wrapped around his waist, and their handcuffed hands are laced clumsily together, squeezed into the almost nonexistent gap between their bodies.

If someone were to walk in on them now, they would mistake Armin and Mikasa for... something else.

It's cold outside, it's almost as cold inside the tent, but pressed near-flush against Mikasa, Armin feels like heat is bursting from him from the inside out, reddening his cheeks in the darkness and warming the entire sleeping bag.

Their legs are tangled together, and Armin isn't sure where Mikasa ends and he begins. It's just flushed skin and soft breaths in the quiet of the tent, two people pressed so tightly together that they look like one.

Armin has seen Mikasa crush an apple with one hand (he was sweating pretty intensely afterwards, and it sure as hell wasn't from fear), but the thumb that she dances across his side, from where she's resting her hand, is light, unbelievably light, the way you'd gently brush the dust off something precious to you.

Armin sighs into the hollow of Mikasa's shoulder, and almost immediately feels a faint shiver run through her, quick and repressed and impossible to mistake.

And Armin feels so split at the seams with intense affection, it's like all those mushy feelings from the past months are turned to eleven, building up into a crescendo alongside the quiet shrills of the crickets outside.

Because the thing about Mikasa is that she's  _ gentle. _ And Armin isn't dumb; he's heard the things people say about her behind her back. Sharp, uncaring,  _ cold. _

But Mikasa has never been harsh. Not when they're sixteen and she's wrapped around him, not when they were nine and she gently shook his small hand with her own. She speaks slowly and deliberately when she knows that people will listen. Mikasa is never sharp until she has to be.

And Armin loves her. He really, really loves her.

He says so, right into the gap between the side of her neck and the ridge of her collarbone.

The thumb against his side pauses for one heart-stopping moment, then he feels Mikasa bury her face into his hair. She hums, the vibration coursing through his entire body.

“I love you too,” and it's muffled, and so quiet you could barely hear it over the crickets, but it rings through Armin’s head clearly.

He relaxes, practically turning liquid in her arms, and leans his forehead against the side of her neck. She resumes brushing one thumb over his side, again and again.

And, even after they both sink into sleep, going lax, their hands remain knotted tightly together.

* * *

An aspect of soulmates not discussed often enough is the question of choice. Where's the fun in falling in love with someone if it was always going to happen anyway? Where's the romance of spending your life with someone if there wasn't any option not to?

In one corner of the walls, located deep within the territory of Wall Maria, there was another version of the soulmate legend.

It said, well, what if the universe didn't choose your perfect match? Who says that the universe, whoever that is, has to be the one to tie you together?

In this version, it's said that maybe, if you really, really love someone in one life, you'll search and search for them again in the next one. Maybe people aren't born tied, but they choose to do so, they choose to tie a knot around their wrists and say, _ just follow the string all the way back to me and we'll see each other again soon, okay? _

Some people believe that you could tie yourself to multiple people, friends and partners alike.

It wasn't the most popular version of the myth. It was a little less glamorous, to think that there wasn't any perfect match or great adventure awaiting them in a quest for their soulmate.

But it was popular among lovers, and people who had already formed close bonds with their friends and family. People who didn't want to leave all that behind for someone that something else said was perfect for them.

Perhaps this variation of the legend wasn't true at all, perhaps some higher power really does choose who ends up with who like some cosmic preteen matchmaker.

But, well.

Armin and Mikasa's wrists may have been chained together, but it was their choice to tangle their fingers together in the warmth of the sleeping bag.

It was their choice to curl together rather than away, to close the distance rather than widen it.

Mikasa may have found Armin through some grandiose game, but, again and again, they didn't cut the string, they didn't forfeit the handcuffs.

They consciously chose to remain by each other's sides.

In the darkness of the tent, Mikasa pulls Armin a little closer.

**Author's Note:**

> this one is way more tied together than tied up but shrug emoji yknow
> 
> yo if i trusted myself to write nsfw i would TOTALLY write smth kinky for 2day but since i have basically sworn off it at this point.... have 3k words of cuddling and soulmate contemplation
> 
> gotta be real with you, chief: i love soulmate aus so much!!!
> 
> tomorrow: we've got... a multichapter, boys! no spoiler tho
> 
> hmu on tumblr, i'm @brightwritesstuff


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